LECTURE 7-8:
Investigating human cognition: example of word-reading:
Cognition is what happens when:
- Identify/categorise objects
- Understand/produce spoken words
- Remembering
- Navigation
- Problem solving
- Calculating
- Making decisions
- Selecting and executing appropriate actions
o Some of which are deliberate, others are automatic and unconscious
Levels of analysis:
- Experiential – subjective experience/private experience
- Computational/functional – representations, processes, modules, architecture
- Neural – how neurons implement computations
o Neurons in visual cortex = reading contours of words
Elements of computational account:
- Representations of information (lexicon – stores spelling, pronunciation and meaning of
words) – build new representations
- Processes that translate sensory input, or transform
- Architecture – organisation of these components – turn on and off articulators/vocal tracts
to read aloud and in your head
- Control mechanisms – enable and disable such organisation
- Theories – start precise with verbal descriptions or diagrams of mind’s representations. Aim
is to sufficiently explicit that we can simulate the minds computations. Need to know if it
gets the task done and if it performs like a human doing the task.
o Computer simulation – both factors included
Reading: cognitive skill:
Components of reading:
- Identify letter and represent their sequence
- Identify familiar words to retrieve the syntactic class (usage and properties) and word
meaning
- Interpret sentence structure
- Sentence structure and word meaning = interpret sentence meaning
o Often need to know intention of speaker/writer and extra linguistic
context/knowledge
What’s a word:
- A form (sign) with a function (what’s significant)
- A pronunciation (phonology) with a meaning (semantics)
- A spelling pattern (orthography) with a syntactic role (other usage properties)
Investigating human cognition: example of word-reading:
Cognition is what happens when:
- Identify/categorise objects
- Understand/produce spoken words
- Remembering
- Navigation
- Problem solving
- Calculating
- Making decisions
- Selecting and executing appropriate actions
o Some of which are deliberate, others are automatic and unconscious
Levels of analysis:
- Experiential – subjective experience/private experience
- Computational/functional – representations, processes, modules, architecture
- Neural – how neurons implement computations
o Neurons in visual cortex = reading contours of words
Elements of computational account:
- Representations of information (lexicon – stores spelling, pronunciation and meaning of
words) – build new representations
- Processes that translate sensory input, or transform
- Architecture – organisation of these components – turn on and off articulators/vocal tracts
to read aloud and in your head
- Control mechanisms – enable and disable such organisation
- Theories – start precise with verbal descriptions or diagrams of mind’s representations. Aim
is to sufficiently explicit that we can simulate the minds computations. Need to know if it
gets the task done and if it performs like a human doing the task.
o Computer simulation – both factors included
Reading: cognitive skill:
Components of reading:
- Identify letter and represent their sequence
- Identify familiar words to retrieve the syntactic class (usage and properties) and word
meaning
- Interpret sentence structure
- Sentence structure and word meaning = interpret sentence meaning
o Often need to know intention of speaker/writer and extra linguistic
context/knowledge
What’s a word:
- A form (sign) with a function (what’s significant)
- A pronunciation (phonology) with a meaning (semantics)
- A spelling pattern (orthography) with a syntactic role (other usage properties)
